Wednesday, April 27, 2011

May Days - Art + Music ?

Lisa Marie Krug, co-director of the Whitdel Arts Gallery, said bands are often apprehensive to "play an art show..."

"Sometimes they're just not sure if the crowds will intermingle..."

As Krug expressed verbally and physically, months earlier, when she and artists/co-directors Jennifer Clare Garwan and Lauren Montgomery opened their gallery with a fundraising concert featuring half a dozen local rock bands, the worlds of art and music, in Detroit, "do not cross enough, normally..."

She had said then and echoes now, counting herself amongst it (as she herself is an artist and photographer), as she gazes across the deceptive, mostly-imagined gap between artists and musicians, "We need to see how we can work together."

And so we come to May Days - a collaboration between two band-bolstered entities: the Loco Gnosis and Ghost Family collectives, along with Krug, Montgomery, Garwan and nine other local painters, sculptors, photographers, installation and graphic artists - to celebrate and acknowledge the vibrancy of both "sides...," but mostly to weave them together, into two different venues on two different evenings, in a very subtle way. To merely put the two creatures in the same cage and to demonstrate how well they can get along...and in what ways, Krug said, they end up needing each other.

"Give it a chance," Krug said, speaking out to any musician or band who might cock an eyebrow at playing a gallery. She admits that many galleries can come off stuffy and any shambolic, torn-jean, guitar yowler with punk penchants can sometimes likely seem out of place. But it can depend on certain venues - which is a big goal for Whitdel - not just a gallery, but a place where anyone can come to learn about art, learn about the potential budding artist inside them - an opening of minds.

Krug shrugs off the often zealous resume screeds that certain artists from around the country march around to various galleries, haughtily rattling off all of their New York-connected credentials and the prestigious schools where they studied... At the end of the day, they come in and "...they're painting Pancakes!"

Bands should remember, Krug said, that these artists are "the ones that are going to your shows, listening to your music...that are inspired by your music... We can be inspired by each other!"